Epilation devices serve for removing hairs, if possible including the roots thereof. Known epilation devices are designed in such a way, for example, that the hairs are clamped between adjacent clamping elements and plucked by means of a movement of the clamping elements relative to the skin. This typically requires that the clamping elements are closed in a predetermined position in each case in order to capture the hairs, moved into another predetermined position in a closed state together with the clamped hairs, and then reopened in order to release the plucked hairs. In order to implement this pattern of movement, the clamping elements may be arranged, for example, on a rotation cylinder that is set in rotation by means of an electric motor. The opening and closing of the clamping elements is controlled by means of a control mechanism that can be designed in various ways. Generally, the control mechanism has actuation elements that act on the clamping elements, such that the clamping elements are closed or opened.
A rotation cylinder of this type is known, for example, from EP 547 386 A. The rotation cylinder that is disclosed there for an epilation device is designed in such a way that movable clamping elements are coupled to actuation elements. The clamping elements can be moved toward one another in order to carry out a plucking movement. In the process, one clamping element in each case moves toward a central damping element from the left and from the right.
Furthermore, an epilation device is known from EP 1 203 544 A1 in which the actuation elements are designed in the form of rods and arranged around the shaft of the rotation cylinder. All of the rods are coupled to a single return spring in such a way that the clamping elements are pretensioned via the rods in the direction toward the opened state. In order to close the clamping elements, the rods arc actuated in such a way that the clamping elements are displaced in an axial direction by overcoming the spring force of the return spring. These are displaced by the action of the return spring while in the non-actuated state of the rods and the clamping elements are opened as a result.
An embodiment of the invention equips an epilation device with a large number of clamping elements while keeping the expenditure of time and effort involved reasonable in order to attain as thorough and painless an epilation process as possible. In doing so, the epilation should be effective both on skin with thick hair growth and with sparse hair growth.